I view it as playing the odds, for lack of a better term.įor our maiden voyage in this RV, I wanted to face the fewest possible issues and cough up the lowest amount of maintenance and repair costs I could. I wanted to keep things simple while still ensuring we had a reasonable level of comfort and convenience.įor our situation, the travel trailer absolutely made the most sense from a cost and simplicity standpoint. You may see this as pessimistic I guess I view it as pragmatic. I would look at a fancy upgrade and think, “How long until that feature goes haywire?” I would see a model that had two slides instead of one and think, “That’s just another chance that we could face those dreaded issues with a slide I’ve been reading about.” PESSIMISTIC OR PRAGMATIC? I felt it come to the surface as we looked at dozens and dozens of different travel trailer models. Honestly, I think in a lot of ways my own perspective on “things” in life mirrors his. He wanted it to get us there safely and without added hassle and expense, not pamper us along the way. And since he was preparing to move our family thousands of miles east and into another country (Canada) in the near future, that reliability factor took on even greater significance. He wanted to know whether this engine and transmission would stand the test of time. No, he was far more interested in the overall reliability ratings on a vehicle. It was the first time that I remember hearing him talk about how we didn’t really need the “bells and whistles” on a car, like power seats or windows, that was just another opportunity for something to go wrong. I distinctly remember when I was about 11 years old and we were buying the first new car that I had ever experienced: a gold 1986 Mazda 626 sedan. THE SIMPLER, THE BETTER: WHO NEEDS “BELLS AND WHISTLES”?Īs a child, I think my dad influenced me early and often with his perspective on simplicity…at least when it came to automobiles. It’s what made sense for us when we really started looking at the numbers, and specifically at the amount, we would be required to provide upfront as a down payment (20-30% of the purchase price if you’ve got “good” credit with a 700+ credit score). Since we were new to the world of RVing, we started out by considering every single type of RV from Class A down to travel trailer.īut as I covered in detail in this post, solid information provided by our salesperson about the realities of financing an RV quickly narrowed our search focus down to just travel trailers. So when it came time to decide on the type of RV we were prepared to live in full-time, I took the decision very seriously. But still, details and numbers are in my DNA. That’s not to say that I haven’t learned a thing or two about letting go from our full-time RVing experience. In most situations, I need the numbers to make sense before I can fully buy into a choice or a direction. *To see all of the nitty-gritty details about our truck and travel trailer purchases, as well as the sales after the journey ended, check out this beefy post.*Īs you might have picked up on in some of my other posts on the site, I am a details and a numbers kind of guy by nature. Pro – Lower Overall Purchase Price and Maintenance/Repair Costs With that, let’s take a realistic look at the pros and cons, the positives and negatives, of living full-time in a travel trailer…from our perspective at least. Lastly, I want to point out that this list assumes you will be traveling while living in the travel trailer, not sitting stationary in a single location. But what we got out of it was utterly priceless, in so many ways. You can get a better idea of what it cost us by reading this post. *If you want to get a better idea of how we made money while we were traveling to make this adventure possible, read this post.*įor us, this was not a “money-saving” move, not by a long shot. And I am thankful every day that it became a reality for us. I understand that the majority of the population could never even imagine having the chance to do what we did, for a variety of reasons. Let me start off by saying that my level of gratitude for this opportunity we had to RV full time is completely off the charts. Pros and Cons of Living Full-Time in a Travel Trailer
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